“You know what, Pop [Spurs coach Gregg Popovich] has done that so many times. I don’t know if it’s a conspiracy, but I’m telling you, going into San Antonio is a tough place to play,” Terry said.

“And I can remember very well one time where it was cold showers, there were about a thousand flies in the locker room. This year, there was a snake in the locker room. So, they’re going to pull out all the stops to get into your head.

“When you go to San Antonio, expect something like that. And Miami fell victim to it.”

To be clear: I don’t believe the air-conditioning was anything more than it appeared to be – a chance electrical outage. Conspiracies are difficult to execute because, the more people involved, the harder they are to be kept secret. A plot like this would require, at minimum, an electrician to damage the system and a trainer to hydrate the San Antonio players. Likely, even more people would have to coordinate.

So, I don’t believe it.

But I can’t completely put it past the Spurs either.

Gregg Popovich snaps at reporters because protecting info might give San Antonio an edge. That’s the Spurs’ franchise culture. They’ll go to great lengths for even the slightest chance at an advantage.

Is it impossible to believe they’d crank up the heat if they thought it would help against Miami? (And with LeBron James’ cramps, it did help.)

Like the Spurs, the New England Patriots were once seen as a team that does everything the right way. And they committed Spygate.

These are competitors at the highest level. I don’t think we can ever fully trust we understand what limits they’ll set for themselves.

SAN ANTONIO — Emptying out my notebook like people are emptying out kegs at River Walk bars….

• Tim Duncan has joked before he wants to be a point guard, and he was asked again by a reporter on Saturday if Gregg Popovich should let him.

“I’ve been arguing that point for years now and I’m going to get your name and card, and I’ll get you in a room with him,” Duncan joked.

Popovich played along.

“You see him bring it up once in a while. He brings it up with three more dribbles than he needs to, he should throw it ahead to anybody in the same color uniform. But he’ll get three more dribbles in, just to practice in case I do it, which I’m really going to do.”

Tony Parker does not exactly worry about his job security, and probably doesn’t have to after Duncan’s five turnovers in Game 1.

“Are we still talking about that? I can’t believe they brought it up in the NBA Finals (laughter),” Parker joked. “It’s been a joke that Timmy thinks he’s a great quarterback, that he can be a good passer. I disagree with that. I want to keep my spot.”

• Popovich was asked about the three-point shot and how it has changed the game, and as you can expect with Pop he was honest and blunt:

“I hate it. To me it’s not basketball but you gotta use it. If you don’t use it, you’re in big trouble. But you sort of feel like it’s cheating. You know, like two points, that’s what you get when you make a basket. Now you get three, so you gotta deal with it. I don’t think I don’t think there’s anybody who is not dealing with it.”

• There’s been a lot of talk online and on sports talk radio about LeBron James’ comment to ESPN Friday that he’s the easiest target in sports. You can debate amongst yourselves whether that is true or not, but Shane Battier had interesting thoughts about what’s different about LeBron James’ celebrity.

“He is the first (basketball) mega-star of the twitter generation. So the world was introduced to LeBron when he was in high school as a 14-year-old, there isn’t a fact or a wrinkle or a blemish about him that the general populace doesn’t know about already. Everybody feels they know him and so everyone feels they can critique him because they’ve known him for so long. That’s not something Jordan ever had to go through, or Bird or Magic. I blame it on the information age, and it’s a sign of the times….

“LeBron is complicit in it. You accept everything that goes along with being King James, then you are complicit. Blood is on his hands, too. But he understands that and he deals with it.”

• If you’re still trying to make a conspiracy theory out of the air conditioning situation in Game 1 — and if so you need to take the tin foil hat off and seek help — I will throw you tis bone.

Danny Green says Spurs had cooling fans in their locker room at halftime. Heat did not have them. Adam Silver said he wasn't aware of that.

• We’ve written at PBT a couple of times about Boris Diaw has been a game-changer for the Spurs in this series. Here is what Chris Bosh said about the problems Diaw presents:

“He’s a crafty player, man, he’s difficult. You never know what he’s going to do. You don’t know if he’s going to shoot it, you don’t know if he is going to drive it, pass it, shoot it again, you don’t know what he’s going to do. I think his ability to do everything in that point forward position makes it difficult. He’s another one of those guys, we’re really going to have to lock in on him, and really do a number on him individually to slow him down. Because when he’s driving and kicking to guys and getting you confused, then you don’t rotate, now he’s hitting threes — he’s one of those players that confuses the hell out of you.”

• Eric Spoelstra also addressed the Boris Diaw problem.

“He’s multi dimensional, puts the ball on the floor, great vision,” the Heat coach said. “You could see with the passes that he made the other night. So we have to do what we do, but do it better, do it with a little bit more thought tendencies, and so forth.”

• Shane Battier talked about how the scouting reports he gets on players he will guard: “I get basic splits — right/left, drives, dribble jumpers vs. spot jumpers, left shoulder vs. right shoulder in the post, basic tendencies.”

So how is that different from what he got when he first entered the league?

“When I first started scouting reports consisted of ‘ya, that guy likes to go left’ and that’s it. ‘Great driver’ and it was like come on, give me a little bit more than that. Now you can tell how good a guy is driving vs. shooting, how good a guy is going left vs. going right, how often he goes left vs. right. You understand what a guy is and what he’s not.”

• Battier was asked to give something off a scouting report of a current player (not in the Finals) and chose Carmelo Anthony.

“You make Carmelo Anthony go right. When he’s on the left block make him go right. He does not want to go right. His percentages go down, his foul drawing goes down, if he goes left it is not good for the defender.”

• Spoelstra gave a shout out to Greg Oden:

“Greg Oden is one of the biggest success stories in this league, and unfortunately people are only judging him by the fact of how many minutes he plays. Two years ago people were saying he would never play the game again and he’s available every night.”

Spoelstra is right. Where most guys would have quit and lived comfortably the rest of their lives off their first contract. He worked hard to get back, to get on the Heat. Maybe he wasn’t everything Miami hoped, but that Oden is here, in the Finals, is a massive accomplishment.

SAN ANTONIO — Having spent a couple of days seemingly only getting asked about leg cramps and how to recover from them, LeBron James and the Miami Heat were pretty much just joking around about it Friday.

Such when LeBron was asked how he could test out his body and recovery before Game 2.

“The conditions are nowhere near extreme as they was, unless I decide to run from here to the hotel, that’s the only way I would be able to test my body out,” he said with a laugh.

“We anticipate we will play in a very cool gym,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We will have to deal with that now. I don’t know if guys will be wearing tights under their shorts and long-sleeved shirts, I don’t know.”

LeBron cramping up and missing almost all of the final seven minutes of Game 1 — and the Heat falling apart in that time, losing to the Spurs 110-95 — has been the story line for a couple days. LeBron did go through some practice with the Heat on Saturday

“The soreness is starting to get out,” LeBron said. “I’m feeling better than I did yesterday and with another day, I should feel much better tomorrow…

“(My plans are) A lot of treatment, icing, stretching, obviously I’m going to get some cardio in today, get the heart rate going. A lot of fluids, kind of get my body above the curve.”

How Hard was Spoelstra going to push him in practice?

“Whatever he’s willing to do. It’s not going to be a Bahamas-like training camp practice today…” Spoelstra said, referencing the Heat’s training camp this season in the Bahamas. “Yesterday was all about rest and hydration and building his body back up. Thankfully we had that extra day.”

What the Heat were really focusing on is taking the steps to even this series — the last 12 times they have lost a playoff game they have bounced back with a win. They have yet to lose a playoff series in the “big three era” after losing Game 1 of a series.

“We need to do what we do better and harder,” Spoelstra said trying to talk around adjustments. “They make it tough with their passing and, you know, getting into the paint with their rolls and spreading you out with three-point shooters. So we need to do that better, there is no question about it.”

Chris Bosh put it this way.

“Coach didn’t want to get too much into it, but mainly on defense and on offense the way they flattened us out, things we could have done better, make simpler passes, simple cuts that would have opened up the floor a little bit for us, and we could have gotten into our game,” Bosh said. “Especially those last three and a half minutes, we could have done a much better job. We look at those and try to capitalize and fix those mistakes for Game 2.”

SAN ANTONIO — LeBron James met with the media prior to his team’s practice on Saturday — yes he feels better, yes he’s practicing, yes he’s going to play — but it was the end of the session that was classic.

Dwyane Wade asked the last question — “You ready to go to practice so we can get better, bro?”

To which LeBron did his best Iverson imitation.

That pretty much summed up the session, down one the Heat are still loose and confident.

SAN ANTONIO — If you just looked at a traditional box score, you’d shrug at Boris Diaw’s Game 1 — 2 points on one-of-5 shooting, although he did grab 10 boards.

But to do that would miss his impact completely.

Diaw was a team best +30 in Game 1 for San Antonio. He had 71 touches and made 63 passes (both second on the team to Tony Parker, showing how they ran part of the offense through Diaw), he had six assists, and his size and floor spacing changed everything for the Spurs — their offense scored at a 133.9 points per 100 possessions pace when he was on the court, 78.9 when he was off. Plus he spent some time defending LeBron James, giving Kawhi Leonard a break.

Boris Diaw was essential for the Spurs’ Game 1 win and he’s a guy the Heat have to account for in Game 2.

“He’s a very versatile, versatile player,” Spurs’ coach Gregg Popovich said. “Some players have a feel for the game that is better than others. And he’s one of those. He can pass the basketball. He sees the floor in a spatial relationship sort of way. He knows where people are. He knows where the ball should go. He anticipates. On defense, although he’s carrying around a little bit of luggage, he does his work early and positions himself pretty well.

“He allows us to play big and play small at the same time, is what it amounts to.”

And that’s why he is so key against the Heat — Miami wants to go small (with Chris Bosh at the five), the Spurs can counter with Diaw (he played 30 minutes in Game 1) and match that while keeping some size on the court to protect the paint and grab rebounds. Technically you would call Diaw a stretch four, but his ability to put the ball on the floor and serve as a distributor on offense makes him much more than that.

“I was always doing a little bit of everything on the court,” Diaw said of his career. “Always been pretty much a three who could play up at the one or two, or could help at the four or the five. Now for a few years I’ve been more on the four side, but always playing away from the basket, trying to face the basket more than being inside and pounding. I think my whole career I played pretty much the same way.”

Diaw has been important at both ends of the floor (the Spurs defense was more than 30 points per 100 possessions better when he was on the court in Game 1). While Kawhi Leonard has the main LeBron James assignment, Diaw gets some turns as well.

“If I’m guarding him I try to use my length because I’m a little taller than if it’s a guard guarding him, he’s way faster than me so I have to give him a little room,” Diaw said.

It can get lost on some fans, but Diaw’s teammates get how important he is to the Spurs.

“I think coming in here he was a point guard or he was a guard all of his life, and he has those skills,” Tim Duncan said. “He has that skill set, and to have the body that he has and to do what he’s done especially in these playoffs this year, it’s been a huge boost for us and it’s really changed our team.”

“It’s been an incredible journey to play with your best friend on a championship team, and I hope we can do it and try to win a championship with him, it would be his first one,” said Tony Parker, a fellow Frenchman who has played with Diaw since youth national teams. “We dreamt about the NBA when we was in France, so we keep living our dream.”